Welcome to Year 2

Please click on the photographs to see the gallery.

2017–18

Welcome to year 2

Our class teacher is Miss Hulbert.

Our teaching assistant is Mrs Walsh.

We have 20 delightful, hard working, well behaved and fun loving children.

We have a class puppet called Alfie too who is very excited about coming home with us. In Year 2 we also have Give Up Gerald the giraffe who always gives up and Work It Out Whiz who always tries his best and learns from his mistakes. We all want to be like Work It Out Whiz!

PARENT INFORMATION

Spelling

We have now gone live with Spellodrome and children have passwords in their reading records. This is a really fun and exciting way for children to learn spelling patterns and rules they are learning in school. The more they do, the more points they earn towards certificates. 

Spellings are sent home on Monday and tested the following Monday.

Reading

Please ensure children are reading their books and completing on line activities on Active Learn / Bug Club. Children  should be changing their reading books at least once a week.

Library books are changed on Fridays.

Maths

Children have mathletics passwords. This is a wonderful resource to consolidate learning in the classroom and learn any other maths e.g. times tables.

Homework

Sometimes maths or grammar homework will be set on  Monday night and this is to be completed for the following Monday.

The homework log is a project for each half term. It is given out the first Friday of each halt term and due back the last Monday before each  holiday. 

Summer Term

Health and Well being week

What a sporty, healthy and relaxing week we had in Year 2!

The week started with our Positive Mental Health Day with the children having a go at mindfulness and yoga. We also enjoyed the NED show ( Never give up, Encourage others and Do your best). We thought about our super strengths and how amazing we all are. 

Here we are doing African animal yoga.

Tuesday was Keep Fit Fun Day where we started to learn about keeping our bodies fitIn the afternoon we had a really fun time bouncing, surfing and lots more at Prince Henry's Grammar School.

Wednesday was PSHE Day. We made happy books with 3 parts: things that make us happy, our super strengths and how we can stay well and bounce back. 

Thursday was Physical Health Day. The day started with a mile run and the children were amazing! Then we continued to learn about keeping our bodies healthy. Every class made a healthy recipe for the St Joseph's Healthy Cook Book. Year 2 made bruschetta, crudites and paprika dip which were  very yummy.

The week ended with a cultural Russian wake up shake up and sports day. It was certainly an active week with seven sessions of physical activity.

Otley topic week

We had a very busy week making lots of crafts to sell at our St Joseph's Otley market. Our theme in Year 2 was bringing summer to Otley. We made trinket boxes, painted pebbles, bookmarks, silhouette art, summer mocktails and candy floss.

St Joseph's is making a whole school ebook about Otley and our part was  to write about the Old Grammar School. The children did some super writing about the school's history and what it was like in Victorian times. 

It was quite an experience being taught by strict Miss Hulbert. The children had to have a hand inspection, recite the school rules and write in a Victorian style font on a chalk board. All the pencils and pens had disappeared. Unfortunately, a few children were naughty so one had to wear the dunces hat and two got the cane! ( WE ONLY PRETENDED)

It was a beautiful afternoon for our walk up the Chevin. We enjoyed going on a  mini beast hunt, recording the different mini beasts that we found in habitats with different conditions. We became nature photographers ready for our next ICT unit. 

Here are some of the children's photographs.

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Pentecost

On Pentecost party day we  used the prayer stations in class to think about the Holy Spirit being with us and those who needs it's strength. 

St George's Day

Friday 23rd April was St George's day, our class Saint. Here we are reciting and performing  a poem about St George.

We also did lots of English things including having afternoon tea and making roses for our hats and cards.

We used lots of arithmetic to solve the mystery of St George's disappearing sword.

History

We finally finished our learning about the Queen with a coronation ceremony performed beautifully by the children. "We will really remember the different parts of the coronation and lots of interesting facts" said lots of the class.

Well done to our official royal photographer for taking the pictures.

We continued to learn about people who have made a difference. Here we are performing the story of Rosa Parks and the bus boycott. Rosa  really did refuse to move and  everyone else on the bus was extremely shocked! The bus driver couldn't get Rosa to move so he called the police officer and Rosa was carried off to jail. All the passengers marched to make a stand for the rights of black people. 

Maths

The summer term started with lots of measurement. We used cm and m to measure length, played who wants to be a measurement millionaire to estimate and measure weight and got very wet measuring capacity.

The Easter holiday homework was to make a clock and learn to tell the time. Fantastic learning at home and at school by all!

English

In Year 2 we have been reading and reading and reading! We are all reading over 90 words a minute. We completed a reading challenge which included reading in lots of unusual places. If we completed every challenge we could ask for a little reward. Here we are celebrating or achievements.

PE

Well done to Year 2 for an amazing performance at the skipping festival. We were the overall winner and and are through to the Leeds city final on 13th June. The children won 4 gold, 5 silver and 8 bronze awards for individual, pair and team events. 

The Tour de Yorshire

We were very lucky that the Tour de Yorkshire went past our school. We had lots of fun watching, cheering and singing our school Tour de Yorkshire song.

Gymnastics

The children did climb really high on the apparatus!

Science

In Science, we put another entry into our seed investigation diary and found that the seeds needed light, air,  soil, warmth  and water to grow into a healthy plant. The children's own plants are growing nicely because they have been given all the conditions that plants need to survive.

We also have a live butterfly garden in our classroom as we are learning all about the life cycle of caterpillars. The butterflies appeared out of their cocoons just in time before the half term holidays. After a beautiful, sunny week, the day we released the butterflies was very wet. I don't think they were impressed but they eventually flew off into the world.

Near the end of the week, we were lucky to get the chance to hold three day old chicks from Reception class. Some of the children commented on how fluffy they were but were not impressed with the chicks’ toilet habits!

Golden Time

Golden time in Year 2 is biscuit and cake decorating. This week we decorated savoury biscuits with fruit and vegetables.

Spring Term

Music

In Music this term  we have been learning to play percussion instruments including the xylophone, the chimes and lots more. We retold the story of Jack and the Beanstalk in our class assembly using  songs and instruments. The children were so amazing using such expression to tell the story, actions in songs and reading music to create sound effects in our story. This was achieved, even after missing rehearsals because of the snow!

Topic Week Space

The week started with a letter from Nasa. We had to learn lots about space to get ready for the Universe Challenge Quiz.

Next we had lots of missions to complete to test our astronaut skills including survival skills, thinking skills, memory and fitness. 

On Tuesday we visited a planetarium. 

In English we discovered a new planet and then wrote a diary entry about our adventure to the planets.

It was very exciting when we got to look through a telescope.

In art and DT we  designed and made rockets and set them off. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Blast off! One rocket flew 12.9 meters!  We also mixed paints to paint planets. 

In maths we created 3D alien shapes and described their properties.

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Easter

During Holy week we retold the Easter story. Here is a picture of Palm Sunday told by Year 2, Year 1 and Year R. 

Our Easter craft morning was lots of fun especially decorating and rolling eggs with Mrs Foster. We made an Easter card, decorated an Easter basket and made Easter cakes. 

LENT

We wrote Lenten promises thinking about almsgiving, prayer and giving up something for Lent. We said sorry for things which we could have done differently. Here are our sorry paper chains joined together with God's love. 

We also had a very thoughtful morning thinking about the stations of the cross. 

Here is some of our beautiful artwork.

Multi Faith Fortnight

In multi-faith fortnight we learned lots about Sikhism. We went on a very interesting trip to a Gurdwara where we learned about the Guru Granth Sahib, prayer,  the features of a Sikh temple and different symbols of  Sikhism. We had lots of fun playing instruments that you would hear in a Sikh temple.

Inside the Sikh temple

Learning musical notes and playing instruments.

We also explored some of the culture with  a visit to a department store where we bought ingredients to make Indian food, watched a sari demonstration and explored the amazing fabrics and accessories. 

Here is our sari demonstration.

Maths

This half term we  worked in pairs to learn how to calculate change using money number lines. We took turns being the shop keeper and the customer. 

We have been very busy learning time tables too. 

Later in the Spring term  we have learned  how to divide and calculate fractions of numbers. We used cubes to help us understand three quarters of a number. 

English

March is reading Month. This terms homework is a big reading challenge. We enjoyed world book day doing lots of reading activities including a book scavenger hunt. Thank you to parents for the fantastic costumes. On our trip to the library the children were very excited to take out a book and learn all about how the library works. 

We were very lucky to have the author, Jason Beresford,  visit school. We enjoyed an extremely funny assembly where the children helped retell the first chapter of his book Fabulous Fish Fingers, great acting!

We have been writing newspaper reports about nursery rhymes. Some rather unusual events happened including Humpty Dumpty falling off St Joseph's roof and Doctor Hulbert using vinegar and brown paper as first aid! Here we are practising  the quotes we included in our wonderful reports.

Spelling

We had a spelling boot camp week to improve our spelling. We had lots of fun playing spelling games, creating pictures to remember words, helping Mr Whoops spell and walking and chalking outside. 

We have also been checking our understanding of lots of grammar, including making sure that we all can describe a noun, adjective, verb and adverb. We were very competitive playing   grammar blockbusters, we learned a song and then won one million pounds on who wants to be a grammar millionaire. 

We also  learned to recite a Sikh nursery rhyme.

History

People who make a difference

Look at our fantastic time capsules about a time when someone  made a difference.

Places of Local Historical Importance

To finish our history topic we walked around Otley to gather lots of information about places of local historical importance. We visited Otley Courthouse, Otley Bridge, the Victorian Clock Tower, the Old Grammar School as well as different churches. The children were very interested to compare how different the Methodist Church is to our Catholic Church.

Some of the most interesting facts that we found out from our walk are:

Did you know that our school is built on the site where the Archbishop of York's Palace used to be?

Two of the last crimes committed in the Courthouse before it closed as a real court was a man who was throwing live chickens and the illegal possession of birds eggs!

The Methodist church does not have a crucifix because Methodists  think about Jesus after he has risen. 

In the summer, under Otley Bridge, there is a colony of bats who choose this magnificent place as their habitat. 

Science

We started to learn about materials and their properties. Here are our material monsters that we made. We have been looking after them by feeding them the right materials and then talking to them about their properties. 

Next we tested the properties of materials, discovered what happens when materials are heated and then thought about the suitability of materials. We finished the sentences such as; it would be funny if a teacup was made of paper because......, using scientific vocabulary. 

Autumn Term

Christmas

Here are some photographs of our Christmas performance.   The little Angel gets  her wings.  Well done to all the children, a fantastic performance!

Christmas tree festival

A lovely afternoon enjoyed by all. Excellent singing to open the festival and beautiful Christmas trees which the children enjoyed looking at. Some of the children wrote a prayer for the prayer tree too. 

Christmas Party

We played party games, made Christmas hats and reindeer dust and had fun at our whole school Christmas party.

Christmas Craft Day

TOPIC WEEK

It was so exciting to meet lots of real life heroes. The children asked lots of questions to all our special visitors. Some children were bandaged by a nurse,  others dressed in a fire fighter uniform and everyone was very surprised when the policeman arrived.  We loved the guide dogs too. In fact we learned  so much information from our hero visitors that we made wonderful non-fiction books. 

We also thought very creatively, answering the question: who is a hero?  Our list poems described over 30 different heroes including carers, charity workers, good friends, deep sea divers, teachers, parents and God. 

RE

In topic week we had a visit from Mary's meals and thought about how every child around the world should have at least one meal a day. We are donating rucksacks,  children's summer shoes, clothes and stationary,  We also made  porridge smiles to help  raise money for Mary's meals.  See Mary's Meals website for more information.

We thought about what God is like and created wonderful descriptions. Then we created art work fro our favourite description. 

In  our child led collective worship we have been reading and singing lots of prayers  that the children have written and brought in from home.

Chosen People

We have learned how we have been chosen by God and given special gifts which we should share with others. Our class assembly was all about how special we are.

We learned about different bible stories including Moses, Abraham and Daniel and the lions. Here we are  using drama to retell the story of Daniel and the lions den with a rather friendly lion!  We thought about the message in the story and how  we should make the right choices like Daniel. 

Well done to Year 2 for leading our special KS1 Mass all about Chosen people. The children read their words and sang beautifully. 

We moved onto our new RE unit all about Mysteries. There were so many  thoughtful questions that the children had to ask that we couldn't really answer. Then we thought about the Trinity and wrote a kenning poem by sorting the lines of the poem into God, Son and  Holy Spirit. 

To get ready for advent we became advent angels and wrote about how we would look after someone in our class during the advent season. It will be difficult to work out who each of our advent angels are because we are always showing acts of kindness. On the last day of term we will share with each other who we have been an angel for. 

PSHE

Here is a picture of us learning to be like  Work It our Whizz. Look at our happy faces.

We thought about how to be a really good friend and wrote friendship rules for our class.

In Anti-Bullying week we celebrated what wonderful kind friends we always are at St Josephs! Then we had a debate about the saying: Sticks and Stones can break your bones but words can never hurt you. Here we are understanding our feelings when someone says something that is hurtful and our feelings when someone says something that is really kind.

GEOGRAPHY

Our topic this half term is Lets Explore. We answered the question: What would Explorer Bear find interesting around our school?  We also used directional language like next to and opposite and used compasses to find north, east, south and west.

Christopher Columbus Day

We learned about Christopher Columbus and other explorers and made native American crafts including totem poles and rain sticks. 

MATHS

We worked together to understand place value of numbers. 

We have used lots of concrete and visual resources to learn about numbers.

To learn about the equals sign, greater than and less than, we  carried out an investigation  to see how many  different ways we could use the signs correctly. 

To help us understand place value and number we used numicon, straws, bead strings and dominoes.

Some of us are having lots of fun in First Class Number. We  really are doing lots of maths even though it looks like we are drinking tea like the Queen too!

PE

Skipping Workshop

Year 2 had a fantastic time at the skipping workshop learning to double bounce, speed bounce, side swing and many other skills. We will be practicing our skipping skills before the skipping festival on 8th March. You can buy a skipping rope from Year 2 for £5 so your child can practice. A great stocking filler for Christmas!

Science

Here are our wonderful small creature  habitats that we created in science. We made sure that they provided for all the needs of living things and a few fun extras for the mini beasts too. 

The Science Festival at Otley Courthouse was very informative and we learned lots of interesting facts about owls and birds of prey.

English

In phonics lessons we have been learning alternative spellings of phonemes. In week two we were learning the ee  sound so we decided to interview a tree. We got some rather unusual answers to our questions. The tree told the children that  during it's lifetime it had, amongst other things, been reading with a chimpanzee and  leaping on a trampolene.   In the future the tree would like to meet the Queen.

We acted out scenes using freeze frame drama before writing  exciting endings to Maximus and the Beanstalk. 

Music

We enjoyed our first music lesson in Year 2.